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Smash!
Smash! was a weekly comic published Odhams Press, later IPC. It was launched on 5 February 1966 as a sister comic to Wham!. Its editor was Albert Cosser, and it ran for 257 issues. During 1967 and 1968 Smash! was part of Odhams' Power Comics line. It absorbed Pow! on 14 September 1968 and Fantastic on 2 November 1968. On 3 April 1971 it was merged into Valiant. The Smash! Annual continued to appear each year until 1975.'' Strips included: *"At Night Stalks... The Spectre" - adventure strip about a reporter, believed dead, who fights crime posing as his own ghost (sounds rather like Will Eisner's The Spirit) *"Bad Penny" - naughty girl strip by Leo Baxendale *"The Battle of Britain" - resistance in a British police state, drawn by John Stokes (reprint of "Britain in Chains" from Lion with a few cosmetic alterations) *"Big 'Ead - a know-it-all character *"Birdman of Baratoga" - a boy who grew up on a Pacific island with only birds for company, who learned to fly using a feather cape *"Brian's Brain" - a boy with an electronic brain, shaped like a skull, in a box *"Bunsen's Burner" - a young man with a steam-powered car *"The Cloak" - spy spoof *"Consternation Street" - soap opera spoof *"Cursitor Doom" - magical adventure, drawn by Geoff Campion and Eric Bradbury *"Destination Danger" - motor racing adventure *"Ghost Ship" - supernatural maritime adventure *"Grimly Feendish" - the villain from Leo Baxendale's "Eagle Eye, Junior Spy" (from Wham!) gets his own strip *"The Handcuff Hotspurs" - football strip about a team of ex-cons *"The Haunts of Headless Harry" - ghost strip *"His Sporting Lordship" - a builder is next in line for an aristicratic title, but can't inherit until he becomes champion of various sports *"Janus Stark" - escapalogist adventure hero *"The Kid Commandos" - three English children stranded in occupied France during WWII *"King of the Ring" - boxing, later wrestling adventure *"The Man from BUNGLE" - spy spoof by Leo Baxendale *"Master of the Marsh" - a Norfolk sports teacher who's the only one who can control the kids *"Monty Muddle - the Man from Mars" - alien tries to make contact with earth, but is always undone by his misunderstanding of human customs *"The Nervs" - little people who live inside a fat schoolboy, initially by Leo Baxendale, later by Ken Reid *"Nutt and Bolt, the Men From W.H.E.E.Z.E." - world war two spoof *"Percy's Pets" - a boy with an exotic collection of pets, by Stan McMurtry *"The Pillater Peril" - a young man who inherits a house haunted by the ghost of a revenge-seeking ancestor *"Q Squad" - world war II adventure, featuring a squad of men with special talents *"Rebbels on the Run" - two boys surnamed Rebbel run away from an orphanage. Later became "Rebbel Robot", in which the boys, protected by a robot with their father's preserved personality, track down their father's murderer *"Ronnie Rich" - a boy who must spend a fortune to win an even larger one (presumably inspired by the film Brewster's Millions) *"Sam's Spook" by Leo Baxendale *"Sammy Shrink" - humour strip about a two-inch tall boy *"Sergeant Rock, Paratrooper" - began as a framing device, the character of Sergeant Rock (no relation to the American one) introducing reprinted war stories, later the star of his own strips *"The Swots and the Blots" - school humour strip by Leo Baxendale *"The Thirteen Tasks of Simon Test" - hero carries out the thirteen tasks of Pharaoh Thot, the only way to save his life *"Threat of the Toymaker" - mad scientist with army of remote controlled toys *"The Touchline Tearaways" - football fans who scheme to help their useless team win *"Wiz War" - humour strip about two rival wizards, Wizard Prang and the Demon Druid, by Mike Brown *"The World-Wide Wanderers" - football strip about a team drawn from eleven different countries As with all of the other titles in the Power Comics line, Smash! also included reprints from America's Marvel and DC Comics. References Online reference Category:Humour Category:Adventure Category:Odhams Press titles Category:IPC titles Category:Comics launched in 1966